Suicide: Subway 13469
Birth data for this boy came originally from a data collection done by members of the National Council for Geocosmic Research (see footnote 1, below). Date and time of birth were verified through the birth certificate. Sometimes the collection also contained date and method, and occasionally time, of suicide. If I remember correctly, the data was collected for suicides during one or two years in New York City and environs. Numbers were used to keep individuals’ identity confidential.

This young boy was identified as “Suicide: Subway 13469” by Astrodatabank. “13469” is the “name” I will use for him here.

On June 3, 1969 he threw himself in front of a subway. At the time, he was nine years 8 months old.

Don’t you wonder what could make a boy--just a kid!!--kill himself? He, at least, believed life was no longer worth living. Worth living? Apparently he could not bear to live any longer. Compared to a boy's mass a moving subway’s is gargantuan. What could be that bad for a nine year old?

We can get some idea of what he was thinking when he died. We can look at his charts to see what they indicate. I start with salient features from his 7th chart. It is the chart of our relations with others and the main chart of this system:

Let’s see if this suggestion of early sexual molestation is augmented or activated for 13469’s death.

A reminder: a “p” before the identification of the planet indicates the planet is progressed. So, pb7 mars stands for progressed harmonic mars from the chart of the 7th house. If there is no “p” before it, then it occurs in the original chart before progressions.

In Set (2) we see the two malefics mars and saturn in the same set and influencing two Angles, 5th, 7th, and 11th houses. Mars and saturn fall in 11th/7th houses. All of this suggests the possibility of a difficult (mars/saturn) sexual (5th house) experience, possibly a group (11th) encounter.

In Set (3) we once again see a painful (mars/saturn) sexual (5th and 5th/1st) encounter also implying a group (11th) experience. Mars’ rulership of B Asc gives this light/mars/saturn set its Angular influence. Progressing harmonic moon in the 7th chart moves approximately 9° degrees per month, or about 3° every ten days. The moons position of about 1° past the opposition to mars and saturn suggest an incident which occurred about three days before he killed himself.

Rulers are not so significant in this set except perhaps mars’ influence over the 8th house. It could represent weakness in close emotional relationships (8th). The conjunction of sun/mars in Pisces falls in 4th/12th houses. They can also be seen as on the cusp of b 5th house, influencing it. The 12th house is instrumental in showing unforeseen (or undefended) aggression towards us. Lighted mars, as shown here, is what I look for. In Pisces (natural sign of the 12th house) it increases indications he experienced malevolent aggression.

As always, I have shown only the more powerful progressions. 13469 also has a moon/mercury/saturn set with influence to the 11th house.

So far, we have seen powerful indications this young man killed himself because he was either raped individually or by a gang, likely the latter. His brother may also have been part of the “gang.” Why his brother? Returning to his 7th chart, his b7 South Node at 28 Capricorn 28 is conjunct b7 mars at 29 Capricorn 08. B7 mars rules B Asc and co-rules (10 of 25°) b 5th house, so a this set is lighted and forefront, indicating something about sexuality (5th) shows up early in his life (Asc). The set falls in 3rd/11th houses, with the 3rd representing siblings and the 11th, groups. By itself, without influence to 5th and 11th houses, the set shows a difficult (mars, a malefic, conjunct SN, habitual or from past lives) relationship, likely with a sibling (3rd house). It could just be aggression (mars) in the neighborhood (3rd house). Power and control (mars in Capricorn) are used against (SN) 13469.

There are other charts we should check for confirmation or refutation of rape as the reason 13469 committed suicide. For sexual experiences, we should check the 5th chart. Since we suspect he had a devastating exerience, we will also look at conditions in his 12th chart. The 12th often contains information about some of our more painful experiences, including murder. First, the 5th chart.

Set (1) shows b5 mars at 29 Pisces 19 in b5th/c1st houses. But it is not lighted. But his 5th harmonic chart has produced a mars in Pisces in a 5th house. When progressing lights hit it, or particularly if it falls on the Angle of another individual, it provides 13469 with the misadventures of mars in Pisces. That is, times when he experiences feeling helpless, making him a victim. It represents an inability to decide, or being overpowered, or perhaps both. Mars, the planet of action, in Pisces, the sign naturally associated with the 12th house of "bondage", shows initiative in chains. I wrote about the problems represented by lighted, forefront mars in Pisces in the papers about Ted Kaczynski (Unabomber), Charles Joseph Whitman (U of Texas tower massacre) and Eric Harris (Columbine H.S. shootings). Elvis Presley also had mars in Pisces lighted in his 1st chart, the chart showing his drug addiction and death. Here are links to those papers: Paper on the Unabomber , Paper on Charles Whitman , Appendix paper on Elvis Presley, Paper on Eric Harris' Astrology

Set (2) shows c5 mars conjunct b5 SN in earlier Pisces. It is lighted by the SN and by c5 sun at 10 Virgo 16. It is made Angular through its square to C MC at 11 Sagittarius 35. None of these rule a 5th house. Set (2) is not in a 5th house. It is in the 4th/12th, suggesting hidden (12th) aggression (mars) at the end of life (4th) and since this is the harmonic chart for the 5th house, this set has some chance of working out through 5th house subjects, e.g., sexuality. However, so far we have not seen much indication this chart confirms the suspected event. Progressions show two sets that do:

Set (3) tells us of a possible sexual event because an Angle has progressed to a 5th house ruler, bringing 5th house matters forefront.

Set (4) shows some influence to c 8th house, but its more telling influence is that it falls in b 5th/1st houses and is doubly lighted. Since he already has the Angular influence through Set (1), the two sets together show Angle/light/mars influence to 5th houses, this one by timing for the event.

So, 13469's 5th chart confirms that around the time he killed himself this boy was being sexually assaulted. It may have happened more than once. I do not know the astrology which shows number of occurences. Something so malevolent occurring so early in life might well show up in 13469’s 12th chart. What do we find there?

He has a set (shown below) which includes sun/mars/mars/venus/jupiter. It influences an 8th and 4th house and an Angle. Lighted venus/mars in or influencing an 8th house is one of the conditions seen when someone is sexually tortured. It apparently represents aggression (mars) toward the more gentle and loving venus. More on this below. On the other hand, venus and jupiter in the set suggest a high (venus/jupiter) that can be experienced from intense (sun) sexuality (venus/mars) and aggression (mars). I am not sure, however, such a high can occur in a boy of nine. Sun/venus/mars as a conjunction was in the 1st house of a young boy who was abducted and murdered. Perhaps in these cases the sun in the set represents an older (sun) individual who experiences pleasure (venus) through aggression (mars).

Let’s look at progressions for this 12th chart for his date of death.

As happened in his 7th chart, this progression shows an Angle progressed to ruler of the 5th house. It brings 5th house (sex and children) matters forefront.

Below is the sun/venus/mars set I recently referred to.

The above progressed sun is passing out of this set. But in the 12th chart the sun moves approximately 5° per month x 14 (the harmonic for the 12th chart) = 1° 10', so this sun was in the set in the last month. Progressed b12 sun has given this set a second Angular influence with influences to 7th, 8th, and 12th houses but not to the 5th house. On the other hand, sexual torture involves the 8th, not the 5th house. This may be the case because in sexual torture the perpetrator is concerned with possession and dominance of the target individual, which is more an 8th than a 5th house quality. The "transformation" of the tortured individual from a ordinary individual into an extremely open and vulnerable one appears to be the goal.

In this, his 12th chart, there is a set which I did not include above because it is slightly out of orb. 13469 has C Asc at 16 Pisces 42 and c12 pluto at 18 Pisces 50R. Pluto is over 2° beyond the Ascendant and unlighted, so I do not consider them conjunct at birth. At the time of his death, however, c harmonic pluto had progressed to 16 Pisces 45R in close conjunction with C Asc in b 5th house. It suggests being plumbed to the depths (pluto in Pisces) of sorrow (Pisces) through sexuality (5th) in childhood (1st). Friedrich Nietzsche had lighted pluto in Pisces, except he embraced his suffering. Here is the link to that paper: Woolf Paper Which Contains Astrology of Nietzsche. I will return 13469’s progressed pluto to his Pisces Asc shortly.

Some times the 40° return covering the period--his occurred on April 28, 1969 at 11:17:08 pm EDT, Bronx and lasted approximately 40 days--of the event tells the final story. It is an excellent indicator about 90-95% if the time. It has to be read with care. The return provides lights and Angles for the chart’s original planets plus progressions. I do not use the houses of a return. If a return is very negative (or positive) but the individual lacks supporting negative (or positive) progressions, the return carries far less significance than it does when the two areas reinforce each other.

For his return, 13469 had an MC of 19 Virgo 03 opposition c12 pluto at 18 Pisces 50. Return Ascendant was at 27 Scorpio 02 with return pluto squaring it at 28 Leo 24 and b12 mars at 28 Aquarius 39 squaring it from the other side. Return saturn was at 5 Aries 36 conjunct his progressed C Asc at 5 Aries 46. These three together gave him Angle/mars + Angle/pluto + Angle/saturn, representing both the possibility of violence (mars/pluto) and death through violence. And he had the following:

In the progressed 7th chart rape is shown for any adult by Angles to venus, mars, and pluto, with reference of at least one of them to a 5th house. This return shows venus conjunct mars conjunct pluto. They fall on his C Asc (in his b 5th house). Combined with the astrology above, this supports an interpretation of rape. At the time of his death, transiting harmonic uranus was at 17 Pisces 50R (within orb?), bringing to him an acute sense of sorrow and probably self-loathing.

In fact, 13469's c moon at 9 Leo 16 served as an odd contributory factor in his suicide. It is conjunct pluto at 9 Leo 55 in 9th/6th, with moon ruling c 5th house (see Footnote 2, below). When he wasn't being steam-rolled, he was probably a "cocky" kid with a very big ego, and considerable dramatic talents (see footnote 2). The difference in self-image between the "grandiosity" of his Leo experiences compared to the "lowliness" of his Pisces experience is profound. Being gang-raped was bad enough. Being gang-raped when a part of your personality thinks of you as lordly and dominating could result in an extreme reaction of self-loathing. This Leo/Pisces combination occurs in the chart of another suicide, Justin Spoonhour.

Finishing with 13469, of the three charts--5th, 7th, and 12th, 13469's 7th and 12th charts--with references to 5th houses--were most active at the time of his death. His 12th chart had the stronger (malefic) return. All of them point to rape, or probably gang rape, some days before his death.

I originally erected the chart of the individual below because data sources listed him as a hoarder. I had some idea of what hoarding looks like, so I erected his chart to prove or disprove my ongoing hypothesis. In the process of looking at that condition, I was overwhelmed--moved to awe, pity, and horror--by other sets in his charts. My data source listed his name as Louis Hoarder. Undoubtedly his last name is a pseudonym.

Astrodatabank stated “After he died, in both his (factory) basement and his old house, all sorts of things were hoarded including stacks of magazines; so much useless stuff that one could barely walk through the rooms.” I once worked for an urban relocation agency. At one point our whole office helped move a woman being relocated by urban renewal. She was a hoarder with a house filled with stacks of things. Many of her stacks were comprised of papers and flattened milk cartons. They reached over five feet in height. She had allowed herself paths by which she could move from room to room. Some hoarders cannot even manage to do that.

My data source also stated that “Louis ran a family tie business that closed down because of poor sales. Though he had a house, he moved into the basement of the empty factory and for years, revolved between the two dwellings, scampering furtively about.” For his social life he was labeled “misfit” and “an angry man.”

Set 2 shows both his “misfitness” and the failure of his business and finances. B7 sun rules b 2nd house: the whole Pisces “stellium,” containing both malefics (mars and saturn), occurred in 10th/2nd houses. The 2nd house part shows difficult (mars/saturn) finances. The 10th house part shows bad business It also suggests a social reputation as an oddball. Misfit would be an even better interpretation. B venus in this set co-rules (30 of 37°) b 4th house, so Hoarder got the double whammy: this horrible set dominated his middle years as significator of his business and social reputation (10th), and it also dominated his last years as a description of the end years of his life (4th).

Another set describes his further isolation:

I wrote about the isolating effect of Angular, lighted saturn/pluto in the papers about the disappearing priest, autism, and Asperger's syndrome. Here are links to those papers: Paper on Autism , Paper on the Priest , Paper on Asperger's Syndrome. This set has Angular influence, is lighted, and affects his birth 4th house although the orb between venus and the light, here c moon, is large (4° 12’ out an allowable 5°). Close enough.

I took a look at Mr. Hoarder’s traditional tropical birth chart to see if it contained anything approaching the above as an explanation for the miseries of his life. His tropical chart does not look that bad, at least to me. Because they are non-harmonic, his conjunction of mars and venus to his Midheaven still exists in his tropical chart, but they are in Aries. He would have been rash (Aries) in both love (venus) and aggression (mars), but rashness does not describe this man’s life. His tropical saturn conjunct pluto is on the cusp of his 12th house and rules his 6th. Unlighted and not Angular, it has little influence. He also has mercury parallel saturn and his Ascendant parallel neptune parallel pluto. Parallels are similar to conjunctions. That is too much outer planet influence to support a “normal” life. I do not know how tropical astrologers-- there are many gifted ones-- would read these other than they would be the source of some difficulty. I doubt they would read them as representing the kind of pain and isolation Hoarder experienced. Looking at his tropical chart, comparing it to one's own, one could say with self-satisfaction, “well, I overcame. He didn’t because he was weak (sick, lazy, dumb, without character" …fill in the right word to indicate the speaker is simultaneously putting Hoarder down and inflating himself). No, we didn't overcome. Hoarder had an unusually painful and isolating life.

We want to look at one more chart for Mr. Hoarder. My data source stated Mr. Hoarder “apparently went mad” after his business closed down.

Below I examine Mr. Hoarder’s 3rd chart for psychosis. Did he really go mad or was he just extremely socially isolated? Was he crazy or just exhibiting the often awkward, unpleasant traits of the socially- and love-deprived? Did he go mad or was he mad before his business failed?

I have defined schizophrenia and paranoid schizophrenia in the papers about John Hinckley and Virginia Woolf et al. The latter, in particular, contains many ruminations about insanity that I do not include here. Here are links to those papers: Paper on the Insanity of Woolf, Nietsche, Van Gogh, and Nijinsky, Hinckley Paper. Briefly, schizophrenia shows up in two charts (maybe more) of the individual. The 1st chart specifically shows our individual identity as formed through our early childhood experiences. In schizophrenia, there is suppression or blocking, usually via saturn’s influence, of the individual’s smooth realization of identity, especially his feelings (moon, venus). This inability to live one’s identity comfortably contributes to the dissociation shown in the 3rd chart. The tendency to schizophrenia (or dissociation of varying degrees of severity) in the 3rd chart is shown (a) by Angular light/neptune (or the set rules an Angle) and (b) by lighted neptune influence to a 3rd house within the chart. Mars added to the light/neptune creates paranoid schizophrenia. There can be mitigating factors. One is, for instance, when mercury is part of the light/mars/neptune set. Mercury helps the individual to anchor his free-floating associations and fantasy (light/neptune) to at least some thinking (mercury). Such was the case with John Forbes Nash. In addition, at least one of the planets in the set--light/mars/neptune--must be harmonic An Angular all non-harmonic light/mars/neptune does not usually create schizophrenia because it has no particular reference (created through harmonics) to the 3rd house unless one of them actually rules a 3rd house. Non-harmonic, it exists in all charts and influences houses ruled, but is not specifically mental (3rd house).

Let‘s see what Hoarder's 3rd chart astrology says about insanity.

Also mitigating against schizophrenia was the fact that Hoarder’s 1st chart did not show that kind of suppression of feeling characteristic in the charts of schizophrenics.

So, Hoarder probably started out schizoid but not schizophrenic. Unfortunately, I do not have the date of the failure of his family business, so we cannot see if his astrology added factors contributing to further dissociation when confronted with the loss of his business.

In summary, Hoarder’s 3rd chart shows definite schizoid tendencies. He was able, for the most part, to manage them. After all, he lived alone and kept himself going until he died. No mention was made of hospitalization.

All was not totally lost for Hoarder in his lifetime. His 7th chart showed a strong tendency to be dependent on others. The isolation occasioned with his 7th chart, in particular, would have given him a lifetime education in functioning, even if willy-nilly, without others. Surely that counted for something somewhere in the scheme of things.

Footnotes
(1) I am not sure exactly who did the collecting. As it was expressed in a 1994 printout I received from the International Data Exchange for Astrology (IDEA), “IDEA is the successor to the RID (Rodden/ISAR DATABANK) which ISAR [International Society of or for Astrological Research] has offered for several years. IDEA is sponsored by NCGR as well as ISAR …” At the time I purchased the data, it was comprised of 455 suicides, many (most?) of which came from the New York City study.

(2) Hitler had a conjunction of moon to pluto in his 10th chart, demonstrating both his grandiosity and his enormous dramatic ability.

Data Acknowledgments
Data for both charts discussed in this Appendix is in the main paper.